Haunted Nights ✅ Completed

Chapter Eight: The Beast Unleashed

A/N: This chapter does contain some mature content and graphic situations. If you are not comfortable with either, please skip to the next chapter. 

**Also this is the EDITED version of this particular chapter. If you would like to read Chapter 8: The Beast Unleashed as I originally wrote it (with more graphic language), please read The Desmond Files: Restricted Chapters book on my profile page. Thank you! =c] wendy**

The Beast Unleashed (*Edited Version)

 

Maya tossed fitfully in her sleep. Daniel watched as the young woman threw the blankets off her body, writhing uneasily. She mumbled lightly, the wine loosening her tongue even further now that she was in a semi-conscious state. He listened closely, trying to make out what she was saying but couldn’t decipher more than a word or two at a time. She kept repeating ‘fascist’ and ‘corporate scumbag’ over and over again.

Moaning, Maya turned and flopped to her stomach. Daniel narrowed his eyes as he one of her shapely legs bent at an angle and came out of the black sheets, highlighting her creamy skin. The shadows around him hissed at the sight of such exposed flesh.

As the moon had fully risen in the night sky, Daniel’s body became painfully aware of his new guest’s every movement. Whenever she took another sip of wine or had stumbled up the steps to his bedroom, his body clenched a little tighter, his hunger growing a little greater.

Daniel couldn’t remember the last time anyone had actually stayed the night. Of those that had, he couldn’t remember any driving him as crazy as Maya was doing tonight. The hunger growing inside him was no longer about food or wine, it was baser…more primal. He craved Maya now, all of her: her warm flesh, her feminine core.

Maya.

The beast rolled her name around the tip of its tongue and savored the taste of it. It urged him to move, to get closer even as they both knew it mattered little. He would never be able to touch her.

And yet, he felt compelled to do it anyway.

Daniel’s shadows moved around him in their excitement. Unable to help himself, Daniel reached out and attempted to run his finger lightly against the smooth skin of her exposed thigh, expecting to feel nothing but air again. He was wholly unprepared for the feel of Maya's warm, satiny skin. The jolt of electricity that coursed through him from the small contact rocked him to his blackened soul, bringing his beast to the front and tearing a low growl from his throat.

Both the beast and the man froze at Maya’s reaction to his touch.

Sighing deeply, she turned and brought her leg closer to his hand so that his fingers brushed the inside of her thigh. Daniel’s entire body reacted to her movement, the pain in his body bringing him to his knees. Gasping, he caught himself on the side of the bed. His insides felt like there in a vise as lightning flowed through what passed for his body. The electricity targeted the beast, making his pain blossom like the darkest flower within him.

Gritting his teeth against this new level of torture, Daniel took a few shallow breaths to calm his treacherous soul and still his racing mind. He was a wraith; cursed to dwell in a place for the truly damned, his soul twisted into something wild and abhorrent. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything but his own misery.

So how the hell could he touch Maya?

She turned her head, her face only a few inches from his own. Again, as if unable to help himself, Daniel’s fingers reached up and brushed the delicate skin of her cheek. Gritting against the current travelling through his nether regions, he traced a line from her jaw down her neck. Then, as if the small sweep wasn’t nearly enough, he swept his fingers back, his thumb tracing the soft contours of her lips.